Congrats on the new dad status! Enjoy the early years – the Toniebox phase is actually pretty great. Muky will be waiting when they start asking for "that song from the movie" on repeat. ;)
And yes – big tech seems to avoid this space. Maybe too niche, maybe too much liability with kids content. Works for me!
YouTube Music would be great, but there's no official API for third-party apps. Only unofficial libraries that scrape the web interface – not something I'd want to build an app on. Too fragile and could break anytime.
Interesting about Australia – sounds like the social media ban for under-16s now includes YouTube, but YouTube Music as a pure streaming service should be separate. The ban targets social platforms with feeds and interactions. Might be worth checking if YouTube Music specifically falls under it or if the device lockdown is catching it by accident.
That's fair. Lack of any official APIs outside of the standard YT data API is frustrating. Would love to see / hear about a rosetta stone for the streaming services to allow easier migration (and integration) between them. Though I guess that's not in anyone's interest.
Also regards the ban, from what I've read Google have included Music by choice. Potentially as a bargaining chip.
A universal standard for streaming services would be amazing – but yeah, lock-in is the whole point for them. Even basic stuff like playlist export is intentionally painful.
Interesting that Google included Music by choice. Classic move – comply broadly, then negotiate exceptions later. Thanks for the info!
Honestly, I don't think Apple would bother with this niche. They have biggAIr priorities. And if they ever did, it would validate the idea - and they'd probably do it differently anyway.
For now I'll keep building. Worst case, my kids still have a music player that works exactly how we want it. :)
Thanks! Yeah the dark patterns in streaming apps are rough, especially for kids. Wrapped and all that social stuff is designed to keep you hooked.
Give Muky a try if you want! Qobuz is nice – would love to add more services like Qobuz or Deezer at some point, as long as the API is good and offline listening is supported. And yeah, wish more services would adopt a user-centric payment model – would be so much better for artists.
Totally agree – it can get messy once you go off the beaten path. But for most things you can build so much with just SwiftUI and a few Apple frameworks. No node_modules with 500+ dependencies. Coming from web dev that still feels like a luxury.
It’s easy to build high performance custom components, for example with Canvas which is excellent. However, at the top level of an app it’s got to be the standard way.
That may be a good thing for usability across apps but it feels like a low code platform sometimes.
Know what you mean. SwiftUI can feel similar – great for standard patterns, but you hit walls when you want something custom. Ended up mixing in UIKit for some edge cases.
Trade-off I'm willing to make though. For a solo project, fast iteration beats pixel-perfect control.
Can understand – depends on the designer though! ;)
I've had both experiences. Good designers push you to make things better. But some insist on details no user will ever notice. Finding the right balance is key.
Thanks! The RFID approach is cool – I actually built a box with real buttons and RFID connected to our Sonos system at some point. Was fun, but in the end I prefer the digital approach. Less hardware to maintain.
And niche isn't bad – sometimes that's exactly where the best apps live.
Yeah the little hardware I had actually tried to make was so painful compared to software dev. Interested to read the part about asking users to make their own spotify dev account. How’s that going so far? Seems like it could be a big roadblock for non techy users?
Totally agree. Took me a while to get there though – early versions were very "here's a blank canvas, good luck." Turns out parents don't want to search through millions of songs. The Browse tab with curated stuff made a big difference. Thanks!
Yeah I know that model – it's a nice middle ground. For now I'm sticking with the current approach, but good to keep in mind if things change. Thanks for the pointer!
Spotify changed their API policy last year – getting extended quota as an indie dev is tough now. They want commercial partnerships or big user numbers. By having users create their own Spotify app, each user has their own quota and I don't need to go through Spotify's approval process.
Apple Music via MusicKit doesn't have that restriction – just works with the user's subscription.
What's worked so far: HN posts (like this one), App Store search/optimization, and surprisingly – just parents telling other parents. I get emails from people who found Muky through friends. Slow but it sticks.
Reddit I haven't cracked yet. Parenting subs can be weird about self-promo. What subs are working for you?
And yes – big tech seems to avoid this space. Maybe too niche, maybe too much liability with kids content. Works for me!